Thursday, April 30, 2009

Oops! western 4.oop.223 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

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It takes years for children to master the ins and outs of arithmetic. New research indicates that this learning process triggers a large-scale reorganization of brain processes involved in understanding written symbols for various quantities.

The findings support the idea that humans' ability to match specific quantities with number symbols, a skill required for doing arithmetic, builds on a brain system that is used for estimating approximate quantities. That brain system is seen in many nonhuman animals.

When performing operations with Arabic numerals, young adults, but not school-age children, show pronounced activity in a piece of brain tissue called the left superior temporal gyrus, says Daniel Ansari of the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada. Earlier studies have linked this region to the ability to associate speech sounds with written letters, and musical sounds with written notes. The left superior temporal gyrus is located near the brain’s midpoint, not far from areas linked to speech production and understanding.

In contrast, children solving a numerical task display heightened activity in a frontal-brain area that, in adults, primarily serves other functions.

Ansari presented his findings November 19 at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience.

“Left superior temporal regions may also be responsible for mapping numerical symbols onto quantities,” remarks Filip van Opstal of Ghent University in Belgium, who studies adults’ neural responses to number tasks.

In addition, Ansari and his colleagues find that nearby parts of the brain, in the parietal cortex, contribute far more to both number understanding and the ability to estimate quantities in adults than they do in children. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire At the same time, both types of numerical knowledge recruit the prefrontal cortex far more in youngsters than in adults, according to the scientists.

“Our results demonstrate that the brain basis of number processing changes as a function of development and experience,” Ansari says.

The new findings support the idea that symbolic number use unique to people builds on an evolutionarily ancient brain system many animals share for estimating approximate quantities. In the past five years, studies of adult people and monkeys have suggested that parts of both the parietal and prefrontal cortex foster quantity estimates and symbolic number knowledge, with a specific parietal region looming especially large in adult humans. But little is known about quantity-related neural activity in kids.

Ansari’s new study consisted of 19 children, ages 6 to 9, and 19 adults, ages 18 to 24. Participants first viewed pairs of Arabic numerals, ranging from 1 to 10, and indicated which number was larger. Volunteers then viewed pairs of images showing arrays of one to 10 squares and indicated which array contained more squares. During these tasks, a functional MRI scanner measured where blood flow changed in the volunteers’ brains, providing a glimpse of rises and falls in neural activity.

Young adults performed the tasks more accurately than children did. But like kids, these adults took increasingly longer to discriminate between two numbers or two arrays as quantities got closer. So, it took longer to tell 2 apart from 1 than 9 apart from 1.

Correspondingly, one part of the parietal cortex in young adults, but not in children, grew increasingly active as pairs of numerals or quantities got closer. This area aids in initial efforts to translate knowledge about approximate quantities into comprehension of symbolic numerals, Ansari hypothesizes. With increasing math experience, the left superior temporal gyrus assumes major responsibility for symbolic number knowledge, he suspects.

Disturbances in that region and in nearby parietal areas may lie at the root of a dyscalculia, a childhood disorder characterized by an inability to conceptualize numbers and understand arithmetic, Ansari adds.

In related research presented at the neuroscience meeting, Ilka Diester of Stanford University reported that monkeys trained to associate Arabic numerals with corresponding quantities in dot arrays show robust prefrontal cortex activity but little parietal activity. Monkeys, like children, may achieve a budding grasp of numerals with the help of the prefrontal cortex, Diester proposes.

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Comments 4

* The Origin of Consciousness.
================
Descartes said: "I think , therefore I am"
Buddhist monk says "I think not, therefore I am"
==========================
Consciousness is real but nonphyslcal.
Consciousness is connected to physical reality .
================
There are many theories explaining the origin of consciousness.
Here some of them.
1)
"God" "blowing" "consciousness" "into man"
"whom he created from clay"
2)
20 billions years ago all matter (all elementary particles,
all quarks and their girlfriend antiquarks, all kinds of waves:
electromagnetic, gravitational, muons….) –
all was assembled in “singular point”.
Then there was a Big Bang .
Question: when was there consciousness?
a) Before explosion,
b) At the moment of explosion,
c) After the explosion.
It is more probable, that it existed after the explosion.
Then there is a question: what particles (or waves)
were carriers of consciousness?
Mesons, muons, leptons, bosons (W+, W- , Z) ,
quarks, …gluons field ….. ets …?
On this question the Big Bang theory does not give an answer.
But can it be that consciousness was formed as a result
of the interaction of all elementary particles, all waves, all fields?
Then, on the one hand, the reason for the origin of the Big Bang is clear:
everything was mixed, including consciousness, and when it is mixed
then it is possible to construct all and everything.
But on the other hand, it is not clear:
why farmer John can think simply, clearly and logically.
3) Ancient Indian Veda approve, that origination of consciousness
is connected with the existence of spiritual, conscious particles – purusha .
4) Modern physics affirms that the Quantum of light
is a privileged particle as in one cases,
it behave as a particle, and in other case, acts in a way which causes a wave.
How is a particle capable of creating a wave?
The behaviour of Light quanta (dualism ) is explained simply.
A quantum of light has its own initial consciousness.
This consciousness is not rigid, but develops.
The development of consciousness goes
“from vague wish up to a clear thought”.
#
Consciousness is connected to physical reality.
It is fact that consciousness is itself already dualistic.
This dualism stays on the basis of Quantum Physics.
Therefore “Quantum Theory of Consciousness”
can be understand only with connection to the
“Theory of Light Quanta”.
#
Spirituality Spot Found in Brain.
http://www.livescience.com/health/081224-brain-spirit.html
========= . .
Neuroscience has found the EGO assuming group
of neurons in the Brain in the right parietal lobe!
It keeps track of self-centred notions as “my hand”,
“my cocktail”, “my witty intelligence” etc.
The greatest silencing of this ‘Me-Definer’ region
likely happens in deep states of meditation!
Meditation stills and stops the EGO! How wonderful indeed !

LiveScience Details here:
http://www.livescience.com/health/081224-brain-spirit.html
=================================== . .
Best wishes.
Israel Sadovnik. / Socratus.
israel socratus israel socratus
Dec. 26, 2008 at 12:35am http://Louis-J-Sheehan.biz
* Our computer-brain.

Consciousness and the Quantum Physics.
Dualism of consciousness.
The Problem of Knowledge .
Quantum Theory of Consciousness:
Our computer-brain works on a dualistic basis.

Some psychologists compare our consciousness with iceberg.
The small visible part of this iceberg is our consciousness.
And the unseen (underwater) greater part of the iceberg is
our subconsciousness. Therefore they say, the man uses
only 10% of possibility of his brain.
And if it so, why doesn’t anybody teach us how
to develop our subconsciousness.
I think it is because there are few people who understand
that the processes of subconsciousness are connected
with quantum processes. The subconsciousness theory
closely united with quantum theory.
These quantum processes which take place in lifeless
(inanimate) nature also take place in our brain.
Our brain can be the laboratory in which we can
test the truth of quantum theory.
The man acts:
1) usually under logic program,
2) sometimes on intuition (unconsciousnessly).
============================
Our computer-brain works on a dualistic basis.
1.
In a usual daily life all we do is done logically,
under an influence of our feelings.
2.
On the other hand, in intuition we act:
a) Without the participation of the sense organs.
b) Without the participation of the logic mental processes.

===== ========
"The conflict between right and wrong is the sickness of the mind"
- Chuang Tzu
The conflict between right and wrong can be explain
by the theory of “Quantum dualism of consciousness” .

===========.
Best wishes.
Israel Sadovnik. / Socratus.
http://www.socratus.com
http://www.wbabin.net
http://www.wbabin.net/comments/sadovnik.htm
http://www.wbabin.net/physics/sadovnik.pdf

israel socratus israel socratus
Dec. 12, 2008 at 11:30pm
* Disturbances in that region and in nearby parietal areas may lie at the root of a dyscalculia, a childhood disorder characterized by an inability to conceptualize numbers and understand arithmetic, Ansari adds.

Oops! Might want to amend this to add "developmental" disorders rather than limiting it to just kids. It is common for adults with pervasive development disorders to have dyscalculia.

Criticisms dispensed with, this is interesting! I have always had a great deal of trouble writing numbers or transcribing letters if the spelling of them is recited to me. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire Very frustrating and http://Louis-J-Sheehan.biz confusing because I should be good at this (I'm a writer) but then I have pronounced dyscalculia and diagnosed ASD and altho I suspected a connection, didn't understand where it might be.
Kathleen Fasanella Kathleen Fasanella
Nov. 23, 2008 at 9:26am
* It would be interesting to see whether people who acquire mathematical skills in other cultures, using, say, Chinese numerals, primarily using the abacus to calculate, rely on the same brain areas as Western adults.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

positive 5.pos.123 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

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Combination therapy that adds radiation to a standard medication for localized but aggressive prostate cancer results in longer survival and fewer signs of relapse than treatment with the drugs alone, Scandinavian scientists report online December 16 in The Lancet.

There hasn’t been a clear consensus on how best to treat such malignancies, which comprise roughly 10 to 20 percent of prostate cancer cases. Doctors call these growths locally advanced prostate cancers — tumors that are marked by fast growth and can even be felt by a doctor during a routine prostate examination. And although the cancer hasn’t spread to lymph nodes or organs beyond the prostate, it has often expanded to the outside of the gland and can be lethal.

For such patients, doctors can use radiation treatments to kill cancer cells, or prescribe drug therapy to suppress the testosterone that fuels prostate cancer growth. The benefits of using both hadn’t been ascertained until now.

“These are exciting results,” says radiation oncologist Colleen Lawton of the Medical College of Wisconsin, in Milwaukee. “This confirms what we’ve all been thinking. It’s pretty clear that dual therapy should be used” for such patients, she says.

Researchers at 47 medical centers in Sweden, Denmark and Norway enrolled 875 men with this form of prostate cancer, average age 66, into a trial lasting from 1996 to 2002. Half were randomly assigned to get drugs only, while the others also received radiation treatments, says study coauthor Anders Widmark, a medical and radiation oncologist at UmeƄ University in Sweden.

After an average follow-up of 7 ½ years, 79 men in the drugs-only group had died of prostate cancer or related causes, compared with 37 in the group that received radiation and drugs. Deaths from other causes were roughly equal between the groups.

What’s more, 285 men assigned to the drugs-only group — but only 77 men getting the combined therapies — experienced warning signs of a return of their prostate cancer as evidenced by an increase in their prostate specific antigen (PSA) score. This measurement, obtained by a blood test, is a proxy for cancer and a jump in the score reveals “a very early relapse stage,” says Widmark.

“[This] is a pivotal trial, and is the first to show an overall survival advantage for radiotherapy in the primary treatment of prostate cancer,” according to Alex Tan of the Noe Valley Clinic in San Francisco and Chris Parker of the Institute of Cancer Research in Sutton, U.K., writing in the same issue of The Lancet. “The results should change current practice, making long-term hormonal therapy plus radical radiotherapy the standard of care for men with locally advanced prostate cancer.”

Lawton agrees. “This says that radiation is playing a very significant role in local control” of the cancer, she says. “It’s pretty clear that dual therapy should be used.”

Whether dual therapy would help prostate cancer patients who have slower-growing malignancies, the vast majority, remains unclear, these researchers say. A course called “watchful waiting” may be best for elderly, frail men in that situation, Lawton says, whereas young or middle-aged men with slow-growing cancer have other options such as surgery or implantation of highly localized radioactive capsules.

In the new study, some well-known side effects of prostate cancer treatment showed up, and men getting the combined treatment experienced more of them than those on drugs alone. For example, five years into the follow-up period, roughly twice as many men in the combined therapy group than in the drugs-only group —7 percent versus 3 percent — reported urinary incontinence. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire And roughly 9 in 10 men receiving the dual therapy reported erectile problems, compared with 8 in 10 men getting drugs alone. http://Louis1J1Sheehan.us

On a more positive note, Widmark says radiation therapy has advanced since these men were treated and can now deliver more specifically targeted doses that are 10 percent greater than those used in much of this trial. Research has shown an added clinical benefit from the higher doses, he says.Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

“Indeed, it is possible that the trial could underestimate the true benefit of radiotherapy,” Tan and Parker note.

Friday, April 10, 2009

data 9.dat.0001 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

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Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
A provocative story on the front page of today’s Washington Post reports that consuming as little as a single alcoholic beverage a day could raise a woman’s risk of cancer. The size of that increase varies by cancer type. Overall, however, it appears to be about five percent over the seven years that women were followed.

What makes these findings provocative: A host of previous studies have shown that for heart disease — the leading killer of postmenopausal women — quaffing a little alcohol regularly is better than drinking none.

So what should women do? http://Louis-J-Sheehan.de

The answer, typical for science, is that it’s all relative.

For people worried about cancer — particularly those who have a genetic predisposition to breast malignancies — no alcohol is probably the best policy.Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire And earlier studies have argued that line already. In this study, each seven-drinks-per-week increase in alcohol consumption upped a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer by 12 percent.

For people at low risk for heart disease, such as nearly everyone under the age of 35, there’s no health justification for drinking. And a steady diet of three or more drinks — or binging on four or more at a sitting — never ever gets a green light from the medical establishment.

But study after study has offered quantitative evidence that middle-age and older adults who take a regular nip — like that proverbial glass of sherry after dinner or at bedtime — suffer less heart disease and diabetes than teetotalers or people who consume more than two drinks a day.

Ironically, even the study referred to in today’s Post doesn’t clearly contradict that apparent license to drink a bit, even daily. The reason: The new study didn’t assess daily alcohol intake among the 1.28 million ladies in Britain studied as part of the Million Women Study. Participants were asked about weekly consumption, and then the epidemiologists analyzing those data divided the findings by seven. Among women drinking 7 to 14 servings of alcohol each week, the new study shows, risk of developing cancers at several sites beyond the breast does increase.

However . . . if someone averages seven drinks a week, those beverages might have been downed on weekends only — leading to consumption of three or more drinks at a sitting. That would be bad even for the heart. Also, in the long haul, for anyone’s liver.

Unless the servings per day can be teased out, the new study — which appears in the March 4 Journal of the National Cancer Institute — only offers fodder for speculation. And questions to be addressed in follow-up studies that home in on daily intakes.

Another interesting caveat mentioned in the new study, but omitted from today’s Post story: “Nondrinkers had an increased risk for several cancer sites compared with women who drank fewer than or equal to two drinks per week.” Naomi Allen and her colleagues at the University of Oxford note that this apparent protective effect of alcohol was statistically significant for cancers of the oral cavity and pharynx, esophagus, stomach, liver, lung, cervix and endometrium, and for renal (kidney) cell carcinoma.

Finally, there’s the impact of smoking. The new study was meant to identify cancers — beyond those in the breast — that might be associated with alcohol. It found small risk increases of one to four percent for leukemia, melanoma, and cancers of the lung, brain and colon. Far bigger increased risks — of 10 to 44 percent— were seen for cancers in the rectum, breast and a few other sites. But among those alcohol-linked spikes in cancer risk exceeding 12 percent (esophagus, liver, oral cavity and pharynx, and larynx), risks for all but liver cancer increased SOLELY among women who smoked. http://Louis-J-Sheehan.de

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not trying to defend drinking. I’m close to a teetotaler myself. And as the mom of a teen who was injured when a drunk classmate totaled the car she was driving (at 5 p.m. on St. Patrick’s Day), I’m fairly intolerant of drinking irresponsibly.

But let’s not scare people with incomplete data. There will be plenty of time to hammer home a call for temperance if and when stronger data emerge.Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire